Belgium, home of the EU aka Surrender Central, has begun to fight against Allah's Army.

Belgium may be in the throes of political disarray, but its squabbling political parties have been able to agree on one thing: The banning of the burqa in public. If the legislation is approved, the Benelux country would become the first in Europe to ban the Islamic face-covering veil.

France has taken steps in the same direction but apparently hasn't fully banned it yet.

Listening to the wild-ass manufactured panic over the oil spill in the Gulf. All of this panic is absurd.

(1) It's not "Katrina 2". Katrina killed lots of people. Even if this oil spill does everything the idiots claim, it won't kill any people (beyond the 11 men killed by the initial explosion) or destroy any houses. It will be hard on tourism for a while, and that's all.

(2) We know from the Exxon Valdez that Nature has a wonderful ability to repair itself. Scientific American, which was still occasionally capable of factual reporting in those years, showed the difference between the areas where we panicked and soaped up everything versus the areas we didn't touch. A year later, the untouched areas had recovered nicely while the soaped-up areas were less hospitable to life. [Qualification: if we were talking about a spill of refined gasoline, I'd be more afraid of serious problems. Refined gasoline contains a number of real poisons, unlike crude oil which is a simple and natural hydrocarbon, basically fermented algae poop.]

(4) The enemy-controlled media are frothing about "delicate ecosystems" and "endangered species" as usual. Land is not delicate. Shorelines were there before any of us living critters came along, shorelines have been constantly reshaping and adapting for billions of years, and shorelines will continue reshaping and adapting after all of us living critters are gone. If all the "endangered birds" are killed, so much the better. Non-existent birds don't give the terrorist organization EPA an excuse to steal jobs and property from humans.

(5) We are humans, dammit. Our job is to protect humans, not to protect every single example of some goddamn subspecies or subpopulation of worms that happens to be locally rare.

(6) British Petroleum (BP) which owns the exploded well, is one of the mainsupporters of the "Global Warming" crime. They would clearly rather make money by trading carbon credit derivatives than by the dirty and dangerous work of providing energy to serve human prosperity.

Rush has proposed a paranoid answer: that the whole thing was a neat way to close down all energy exploration. Obama started by pretending to open more territory to drilling. Then the explosion "happened", giving Obama a convenient reason to close everything down, which is certainly his natural desire. (It was also the natural desire of Comrades Bush and McCain, though Rush would never acknowledge that.)

In previous decades, Presidents or campaigns have given us slogans like Square Deal, Fair Deal, New Deal, New Frontier, Great Society ... but we haven't had one lately.

Finally, as a result of the Goldman Sachs hearings, we have the perfect slogan for the BushClintonBushObama administration: The Shitty Deal! Packages the whole mess in one huge fraudulent Triple-A-rated derivative.

The most interesting and newsworthy aspect of Gordon Brown's on-mike moment isn't really what he said.

Evidence that Gordon Brown is an arrogant asshole who thinks he is God?

That's not news.

That's always been blatantly obvious to any normal human who watches Brown for more than one millisecond. His obnoxious leftist aristocracy sprays from every evil cell of his body.

No, what's newsworthy is the universality of the understanding that Brown was wrong. Even the American Commie media acknowledge, implicitly or explicitly, that wanting to protect your own nation from outsiders is not bigotry.

They are unable to say this in a more local context (Arizona) but as usual they can describe events accurately when the events are in another country.

Must admit that I didn't even understand the function of ordinary betting let alone the Wall Street variety, so this was a double explanation for me.

Gambling is the only vice I've never been able to comprehend. Tried all the others, liked most of them ... but even with the vices I didn't take up, I could easily see why others get hooked. Not so with gambling. It's pure Martian. I can't begin to envision how you could gain pleasure from tossing money down a hole.

A Gaian Church group is suing EPA to have the Giant White Palouse Lily-Scented Spitting Earthworm listed as an endangered species because only 4 specimens have been found in Whitman County in the last century. However, the very same worm is quite common a few counties north, around Leavenworth. Under the Endangered Species Tyranny, specimens found near Pullman count as a different kind of animal than the specimens found near Leavenworth, because the specimens found near Pullman are found near Pullman while the specimens found near Leavenworth are found near Leavenworth.

In this situation we are required by "science" to recognize two groups as different when they are precisely identical. With humans, we are required by "science" to recognize groups as the same even when all humans instantly recognize the groups as different.

Seems inconsistent? Not really. The underlying consistency, as Orwell showed us so many years ago, is to confuse and stupefy, to abort every type of thinking at its birth. That's the precise meaning of his Newspeak word unthink. Where logic spots a difference, "science" forces us to see equality. Where logic recognizes two things as equal, "science" forces us to see them as different.

Now some complete live specimens of the Giant Palouse Earthworm have been firmly identified. It's not really giant (12 inches, hardly unusual for worms) and it's neither lily-scented nor spitting. But it is a distinct species and it's allegedly rare in the Palouse, so we can now be sure that the EPA terrorists will close down Washington's profitable wheat crops.

Watching the Senate grilling of Goldman execs. A highly revealing internal view of the operating code of Wall Street. The entity titled "Sparks", which has a vaguely humanoid appearance, is telling us everything by its complete inability to comprehend any human concept. When asked 20 times whether Goldman had any duty to serve the interests of its customers, the "Sparks" entity was unable to even compute the question let alone answer it. "Sparks" finally emitted a sound sequence approximately resembling "We have a duty to efficiently transact".

Clearly my constant use of the phrase Wall Street Mafia is wildly unfair to human Mafias, whether Italian or Russian or Chinese.

Human Mafias have a moral code, a set of limits, a list of crimes they won't commit.

Wall Street has only one code: "I am the Universe. All property and people in the world are Mine. All governments obey My commands."

= = = = =

Later: It's especially shameful, but unfortunately no surprise at all, to see Republicans like Coburn and the NRO commentators sympathizing with "Sparks".

As the English-speaking world swirls quickly down the sewer, parts of Europe are rising into the sunlight.

This trend hasn't been mentioned by America's propaganda factories, because they don't want us to know that alternate paths are possible. They want to keep our eyes firmly riveted on the noisy and colorful fixed wrestling match between the two so-called "parties". They have successfully confused, demoralized, impoverished and strapped down our own people, while freeing, enriching and empowering all our enemies.

Nevertheless, several Euro countries are now pushing back against Mohammedan darkness, pushing back against Leninist chaos. Switzerland, France, Poland, Czechia and now Hungary have various types of pro-national governments, devoted to advancing THEIR OWN PEOPLE while constraining and confusing the enemy. This is, of course, the basic job of any government. English-speaking countries have turned it upside-down.

Hungary's 'secondary' election on Sunday gave the populist Fidesz party a 2/3 majority. This is enough to make serious structural changes, which are still allowed in Hungary (again unlike English-speaking countries). New prime minister Orban has promised not to accept orders from the EU or the IMF. Remains to be seen whether he can stand up to the pressure from the Transnational Progressives, but it's a damn good start.

Ross Douthat's latest NYTimes column hits hard, and I'm glad he managed to say these things in a place where some Communists may actually end up reading them.

Our culture has few taboos that can’t be violated, and our establishment has largely given up on setting standards in the first place.

Except where Islam is concerned. There, the standards are established under threat of violence, and accepted out of a mix of self-preservation and self-loathing.

This is what decadence looks like: a frantic coarseness that “bravely” trashes its own values and traditions, and then knuckles under swiftly to totalitarianism and brute force.

Not quite. Yes it's decadence, but it's not just a grim historical tendency. It's Lenin's grand plan as translated by Alinsky. Using the ACLU, affirmative action, Wall Street Mafiosi, saboteur judges, open borders, free trade, "fair and balanced debate", Global Warming, and a dozen other gambits, Lenin shreds the bonds of society, turns ordinary people into quivering confused blobs of poverty and rage, turns evil people into Masters of the Universe.

A shredded society doesn't simply "knuckle under" to totalitarians, it REQUIRES a totalitarian to restore security. And that's where we are.

The hard-line Maoist denominations like UCC, Episcopal, Methodist and Presbyterian came to it next, from a different angle. They've been faithfully preaching the full deadly doctrine of the Left for a long time. Feminism, homosexuality, abortion, redistribution of good and evil. When the Party added Gaia to its manifesto in the '70s, these branches of the Party mechanically went along.

Rome was late to the game; didn't solidly switch from Christ to Gaia until High Priestess Benedict decided to surrender to every currently available false god. Mohammed, Gaia, Marx, all fine with the Priestess. (It's always that way with Krauts: at your throat or at your feet.)

Among the big players the last holdout was Southern Baptists, who finally converted a couple years ago.

There must be some minor splinter groups that still stick with Christianity, so I suppose there's a little bit of work for Obama's Faith-Based Thingamajig.

= = = = =

As far as I can tell, the Churches of Christ haven't switched yet. Maybe because they don't have a central office that can be infiltrated or blackmailed by the Left. (See O'Sullivan's Law). Or maybe even because they're true Christians with enough discernment to detect and reject a false religion? Dare I think it?

The new Arizona immigration law is drawing predictable responses from the national level. Comrade Obama calls it "misguided" and brings in the Department of Jesse Jackson.

Pretty much the same response that Comrade Bush (senior or junior) would have given. No state can be allowed to protect civilization; all states must be forced to assist in our national suicide.

FWIW, Manchurian Candidate McCain would have been even worse. Obama and the Bushes take the standard Republicrat side of this question for practical political reasons, namely because Florida, the only state where votes count, has a highly active Spanish constituency. Comrade McCain is different. He has a truly insane passion for eradicating borders, a truly destructive Ebola fetish for flaying off the skin of the nation and letting all the microbes enter without opposition.

I'm puzzled by one thing, though: Oklahoma passed a tough immigration law three years ago without nearly as much screeching from the Stalinists. The Okla law was aimed in a different direction, focusing more on employers, less on police. And it has worked splendidly. Mexicans started moving out of Okla before the law was passed and continued moving out in large numbers. (When an ethnic group drops below a critical mass, the remnants have to assimilate, thus they no longer comprise an "immigration problem".)

And this is how the federal system is supposed to work. Different states try different solutions; states that don't have a particular problem don't need to do anything about that particular problem.

That's an obsolete theory, of course. Dim historical memory of a place called America. All gone.

= = = = =

Later thought: maybe the diff between Okla and Ariz is also crude practical politics. Arizona is smaller than Florida, but it is a closely balanced 'swing' state. Okla is solid Republican in Presidential voting, so it basically doesn't exist in the minds of DC and the media.

As various newscasters discuss the VAT, they always start by describing it as a "national sales tax". No, it's not the same thing ... well, in theory it's not the same.

And then they give an example of how the VAT works, such as the production of a cotton shirt. When the farmer sells the cotton to the mill, VAT takes a chunk. When the mill spins it into thread and sells the thread to a clothing mfr, VAT takes a chunk. When the clothing mfr sells to WalMart, VAT takes a chunk.

Trouble is, every example describes a PRODUCT NO LONGER MADE IN AMERICA. Cotton shirts are made equally in China and Turkey. Everything else is made solely in China.

So the misdefinition as a national sales tax turns out to be correct in practice, because the only economic activity that occurs in America is the final sale at WalMart.

Are these idiots actually unaware that America produces nothing? Or are they so completely steeped in transnational progressivism that they don't comprehend boundaries?

Whether they understand boundaries or not, you can be damn sure the IRS will understand. The IRS will know that it can't impose VAT on the steps of production in China, but it can impose VAT on stages of manufacturing in America in the unlikely event that any such activity should be attempted.

Oh boy! Just what we need! One more competitive disadvantage!

A pure national end-point sales tax would make tremendous sense for lots of other reasons, and it would NOT give us a new disadvantage.

News features another one of those ordinary people winning $258 million on some lottery. Without reading the article, I know he will "keep his job" and he will use the $258 million to "pay some debts" and "buy a better car, maybe remodel his house."

Always short on imagination.

Those are things you could do with $258 thousand, not with $258 million.

I know exactly what I'd do with a monster sum like that. Invest the first half-million for my own comfort. Distribute the rest among three or four outfits that already have experience and expertise at fighting the govt-owned terrorist organization EPA. Outfits like Western States Legal Foundation. Tell them to hire as many hungry shark-like attorneys as they need.

Goal: Sue the terrorists down to an abject standstill for a couple of years. Keep them busy 24/7 preparing discovery documents, answering depositions, and attempting to defend genocidal lies against plain truth.

All the talkers are roaring this morning about the SEC employees spending their time on porn. "Sixteen Thousand Files! Had To Store DVDs In Boxes!"

Juicy, yes, but misses the target. And not accidentally.

The problem isn't the "senior employees" watching porn, the problem is that SEC management didn't have anything better for the senior employees to do, obviously didn't care what the senior employees were doing.

If SEC had been enforcing the laws during the last few years, there wouldn't have been a spare minute for talking or porn or any other leisure activity.

This story must have been planted in the media by SEC itself. Same principle as the idiots who stir up outrage over earmarks and pork-barrel spending ... if you can keep the voters pissed about trivial peccadillos, you can get away with serious crimes.

When you consider any action, law, regulation or project that the Communist Party opposes, you have to do it HARD AND FAST.

Dithering around, waiting till the deadline, does a tremendous amount of harm. It allows the Party-controlled media and the Party-controlled mobs to work up a frenzy.

The Party media function solely on "could" and "might"; they are totally uninterested in facts. And the mobs will calm down after the Party knows that your opinion has already been registered. Much harder to rile up the rabble about a fait accompli.

Aside from those tactical considerations, the people on your own side (and even the neutrals) need to see decisive action from an executive at all times. When you dither, you demoralize your friends.

By letting the immigration law stay in the "could" category for several days, by making it clear that her opinion is still open to influence, Brewer has strengthened the Party and weakened Civilization, making the job of her own police much harder if she does finally decide to sign the law.

= = = = =

Update: She finally did sign the law, before the deadline. Good. I was beginning to wonder.....

Here we see about 100 middle-school kids walking to school today to "celebrate Earth Day."

Well now, let's see how much energy they're saving. Assume they're 7th graders. Today would be about their 1400th day of school. (180 days per school year * 7 full years, plus about 140 this year.)

Until today (and again after today!) each of them has been ferried back and forth in Mom's SUV. Mom's SUV is rated at 17 miles per gallon, but the way Mom drives it's more like 12. 1400 trips of about 4 miles = 5600 miles. 5600 miles / 12 MPG = 466 gallons. So all 100 kids have used 46600 gallons of gas up till today.

By walking today they saved 33 gallons altogether. Roughly 7 hundredths of one percent of their lifetime total up till now.

Even if you buy the Carbon Cult's monstrous structure of genocidal lies, this is completely trivial.

Far more important, but not even mentioned in the Earth Day ratshit:

If these kids walked every day, they'd live longer, better and saner.

With 4 miles of exercise and sun each day, they wouldn't need ADHD drugs. They'd be in closer contact with the physical world, they'd have a better understanding of seasons and proportions and causality, thus they'd be less likely to fall for fantastic evil propaganda like Earth Day.

A very informative debate going on within NRO. Yesterday Jim Manzi posted a wildly illogical mess of Gaia-worshipping schizoid babble. Manzi was using a Mark Levin book as target, which is unfortunately easy because Levin is an unintelligent partisan hack. Levin's partisanship happened to be correct in this case, not because Levin understands the Carbon Cult but because he happened to follow people who do understand the problem.

Manzi has been vocally pro-Gaia and anti-science for a long time, but this insane skrawk went beyond all bounds. Even the High Priests of the Church like Phil Jones and Michael Mann no longer sound this wild.

Polistra is happy to see General Motors coming back toward profitability and repaying the bailout. She believed from the start (well, almost from the start!) that GM deserved a bailout if we were going to do bailouts at all. Wall Street deserved jail, not bail.

And events have turned out predictably. Wall Street is using the money to re-enrich and re-bonus the same handful of criminals, while GM has used the money to re-tool two factories, giving new jobs to Americans.

Polistra is especially cheered to see that one of the re-tooled plants will be Fairfax, the easternmost point in Kansas. (Fairfax bulges just a little beyond the straight line of the Kan-Mo border.) Fairfax began as an Army airfield in WW2, served for a while as the KCK downtown airport, then served GM for many years. KCK has always been an industrial city, and richly deserves to have its plant running full speed.

= = = = =

Incidentally, this is one of the few questions where American politicians show real differences, and where the meaning of Populism can be quantified neatly.

We have two binary choices (Bail Mafia, Bail GM) forming a total of four combinations.

The Republican establishment voted to bail only the Mafia, and has gone on to defend Toyota and mock GM, showing themselves to be complete and total criminals, complete and total traitors.

Many of the lower-level Republicans voted to bail neither, which is a consistent ideological choice that agreed with most voters at the time.

Obama and most of the Dem establishment voted to bail both, which is also a consistent ideological choice though it disagreed with most voters.

The Populists (eg Marcy Kaptur, Elijah Cummings) voted to bail only GM, showing their loyalty to America and their correct understanding of what makes an economy run.

= = = = =

Or, hitting the same point from a different angle.... Republicans are constantly quoting the obsolete dictionary definition of Socialism as "government ownership of the means of production." This definition was always a distraction, never described the real difference between Soviet brutality and Western freedom.

In fact govt-owned industry can be better than privately owned or it can be worse. This has become especially obvious in the details of various health care systems. The best countries include private non-profit, mixed, and pure govt systems. The worst (ours) is a mixed system. No correlation between ownership and quality.

The important variable is not the ownership or the name of the system. The important variable is the motivation of industries, how they measure their success. For the last 30 years we have allowed our industries to use share price instead of profit as their motivation, which led to the collapsed mess we have now. Worst of all worlds.

GM's current motivation is to pay back the gov't and get back to profitability. Historically this is an unusual goal, but it turns out to be a lot better than share price!

One specific counterexample suffices: Persian women were among the most educated, privileged and intellectual women in the world before Khomeini's revolution. This didn't stop the revolution, probably hastened it. (As it happens, I knew several of those Persian women, came perilously close to marrying one.)

Not to mention the far more obvious and far more general fact that male and female terrorists and revolutionaries have ALWAYS grown from the MOST educated class in each country.

In short, more education means more terrorists. I'm sure Comrade Nita Lowey understands this fact, which is exactly why she wants more education in those countries.

Airlines in Britain, France, Germany and the Netherlands have conducted their own test flights to gauge conditions and declared that their aircraft suffered no damage.

"The analysis we have done so far, alongside that from other airlines' trial flights, provides fresh evidence that the current blanket restrictions on airspace are unnecessary," said British Airways CEO Willie Walsh, who participated Sunday in a test flight from London to Cardiff, Wales. "Our assessment is that the risk has been minimal and can be managed by alternative procedures to maintain the highest [safety] standards."

Though volcanic ash is a real danger to planes, it seems that the complete stop was mainly determined by computer models.

Interesting that the media have taken only three days to realize this fact, only three days to understand that real data measured by physical instruments is always superior to models based on fantasies.

With "Global Warming" there is no real danger at all, and the whole thing has been a total criminal conspiracy since 1975, transparently obvious to anyone with a tiny grasp of reality.

Why, then, have the Euro media only now started to realize the falseness of "Global Warming", and the American media haven't even begun to catch on?

Three days to truth for Eeyore, 35 GODDAMN YEARS to truth for "warming".

Of course this isn't really a puzzle.

With Eeyore, the People Who Count are dramatically inconvenienced and may even have to lose 0.001% of their income as a result of the computer models.

With "Global Warming", the People Who Count are dramatically enriched, empowered, and glorified as a result of the computer models.

Thus we hear about the falseness of the flight stop and we never hear about the falseness of the Carbon Cult.

The People Who Count, accustomed to jetting around the world at the drop of a hat, are finding themselves confined to quarters like the rest of us and they're pissed.

PWC weren't hampered by the tyranny imposed after 9/11, because their Gulfstreams aren't under TSA regulations. The purpose of those regulations, after all, was to prevent Shanksville from happening again, not to prevent the Twin Towers from happening again. We must take pains to allow all Soldiers of Allah to cut through the line carrying any damn thing they want, but we must NEVER AGAIN allow non-Mohammedans to have any weapons that might possibly stop the Soldiers of Allah. The Christmas Day attempt by Abdul bin Underpants was a real wake-up call for TSA, because the infidel Dutch movie producer was still able to stop the heroic Nigerian jihadi.

Gulfstreams are exempt from all this because the people who ride in them are all enemies of Western Civilization in one way or another. Thus there's no chance of a conflict, no chance of an infidel defender accidentally getting on board.

This time, however, the limitation is applied to all flights, and the PWC are chafing. No special privileges, no diplomatic immunity. Nobody in Europe flies. No Christians, no Communists, no Wall Street Mafiosi, no Mohammedans. Nobody.

It appears that some of them are even considering a change in their habits.

Well, Polistra has the answer for anyone wishing to change. This new "Telephone" device makes it possible to converse with people in distant places without actually moving your body to the distant place, and the latest versions let you see the other conversants and exchange text information at the same time.

Yesterday I was thinking about the years in the 80's when I did tech work in acoustics and speech. Pondering, it struck me that computers of that era had some element of intimacy that's missing today, some ingredient that made it easier to set up things like data entry and data correction on the fly. Finally remembered what it was: BASIC. On the earliest PC's and Apples you were in BASIC as soon as the machine was on. (Which was instantly after you flipped the switch; no three-minute warmups or shutdowns!) BASIC gave you the power to shape the machine for any purpose, the power to calculate or type or organize anything from a central starting point.

Obviously a modern machine has infinitely more moxie "under the hood", but you have to go through more steps to reach that power. You can't simply type in a formula and get your answer. I still try to do this sometimes, in the middle of a complicated thought process, and get derailed and distracted when nothing happens!

Another remnant: With the original PC, DOS came up instantly when you flipped the switch. You typed BASICA to get into the useful part. Now, after 30 years without using any form of the BASIC language, I still automatically type basica every time I write the word basic.

Eyjafjallajökull, the volcano spitting all over Europe, is supposedly pronounced something like this, or this, or this. The first has zero connection with the spelling, the second seems closer, the third is probably authoritative.

Most newscasters are simply leaving it unnamed, which is a reasonable approach.

Well, what would happen if Klyuchevskaya Sopka in Siberia, and Popocatépetl in Mexico, both recently active, decide to erupt now?

Perfect storm of unpronounceables.

Especially old Popo ... If you say it in proper Aztec form, it ends with exactly the same sound as Eyjafjallajökull.

= = = = =

Sidenote: Icelanders really are weird. When I was doing acoustical tech work at Penn State, I dealt once with an Icelandic grad student who was analyzing the conversational style of Icelanders. She had recorded some kitchen-table discussions among her friends and relatives. Remarkably, Icelanders literally never stop talking. When three people were in the room, all of them were emitting words all the time, talking on both inhale and exhale to keep the words flowing. This sounds like an urban legend, but I swear it's true. I heard it, recorded it, and analyzed it.

Basic theme: Psychiatry has become a wholly-owned subsidiary of the drug companies, serving only to sell drugs. This development was not natural or accidental.

Whitaker details the history of the conspiracy, beginning in 1975 (hmm, why does that year sound familiar?). At that point psychiatry was in a crisis, because internal whistle-blowers like Hans Eysenck and Thomas Szasz had publicly and scientifically revealed that the profession was doing absolutely no good. Other therapy systems had grown up in the '70s, some effective and some not, but all functioning without the need of an MD degree. The prosperous priesthood was in danger. Something had to be done.

The APA insured that no competing theory could gain credence by de-funding and de-certifying and beating heretics. (Hmm, why etc.)

At this point the shrinks got lucky. L Ron Hubbard's cult of Scientology came along at just the right time; Scientology is weird and fanatical and litigious, but it happens to be correct in its harsh criticism of psychiatric methods. An ideal foil for the APA. (No Hmm here. Though the Warmists use the same techniques to discredit their enemies, they've never been lucky enough to find or create a powerful-and-kooky enemy.)

And the APA then locked its theory into place by addiction. (Not available to the Gaians at all, for which I'm thankful.)

Whitaker shows how it works:This is a clinical trial of Xanax vs placebo for panic episodes, both accompanied by some real (ie talking) therapy. Unsurprisingly, talk therapy helps with or without the drug. Note that talk+Xanax is only marginally better than talk+placebo. The important difference comes after the pills stop. The talk+Xanax patients immediately get worse than they were at the start, while the talk+placebo patients remain calmer than before. For them, the talk therapy was a real cure.

Here's Whitaker's main point: This curve is typical of all modern psychoactive drugs, and it's the key to modern psychiatry. If you can improve patients permanently by a few weeks of talking, you make a little money and then lose control. But if cessation of therapy makes your patients dramatically worse, you make money for a lifetime and you have permanent control.

Net result of all this: An epidemic of "disorders" which always get worse.

David Healy is a prof of psychiatry in North Wales. ... He compared outcomes of the mentally ill in North Wales a century ago with outcomes today. The population of the region hasn't changed in this period [so numerical comparisons are valid.] The common belief, Healy notes, is that the old asylums were bulging with lunatics. Yet from 1894 to 1896, there were only 45 people per year admitted to the North Wales Asylum. Furthermore, as long as the patients didn't succumb to TB or some other physical disease, they regularly got better over the course of three months to a year and went home. In addition, the overwhelming majority of patients admitted for a first episode were discharged as "recovered" and never again re-hospitalized.

Today, the assumption is that patients fare much better than they used to, thanks to psychiatric medications. However, in 1996 there were 522 people admitted to the psych ward at the District General Hospital - nearly twelve times the number admitted to the Denbigh asylum a century earlier. Seventy-six percent of the 522 had been there before, part of a large group of "recyclers". Though patients spent a shorter time on each visit than in 1896, only 36 percent were discharged as recovered. Patients today are clearly more chronically ill than a century ago, with modern treatments setting up a "revolving door".

Whitaker sums up in the last chapter:

For the last 25 years the psych establishment has told us a false story. It told us that schizophrenia, depression and bipolar illness are known to be brain diseases, even though it can't direct us to any scientific studies that document this claim. It told us that psychiatric medications fix chemical imbalances in the brain, even though decades of research failed to find this true. It told us that Prozac and the other 2nd-generation psychotropics are safer and better than the 1st-generation drugs, even though the clinical studies had shown no such thing. Most important of all, the psychiatric establishment failed to tell us that the drugs worsen long-term outcomes.

One point Whitaker doesn't pound heavily enough: Most of this legalized and deadly addiction is directly or indirectly paid by tax dollars. Whether within asylums or paid by SSI or Medicaid, most of the people who are enslaved by the shrinks and the drug companies are not paying for their own services. We're spending hundreds of billions to fight unprescribed drug traffic at the same time we're spending hundreds of billions to create prescribed drug traffic. Loony.

"SEC alleges Goldman failed to disclose that one of its clients helped create - and then bet against - subprime mortgage securities that Goldman sold to investors."

The suit seems to be fairly technical, not a broad statement of crime, and it probably won't put Goldman Sachs out of business. Nevertheless, it's the first real indication that the Fed bureaucracy is no longer 100% enslaved to GS.

= = = = =

Tim Carney (appearing on Jerry Doyle's radio show) has an interesting and convincing idea. He says it would be better for the country if we didn't have any of these little head-fake regulatory actions, because the broad public would then continue to lose faith in the Casino. Ideally the Casino would totally collapse, which would be best of all.

These little moves toward regulation are designed to bring the suckers back in, giving the big players more money to steal; without the suckers, the big players would have to play each other, which is less lucrative and more "sporting".

The nation's largest investment bank, famously cozy with top government officials in both parties, has tipped its hand to its shareholders, indicating that major financial "reform" proposals will help Goldman's bottom line. ...

The question is: What's in it for Goldman? ... They want Uncle Sam to mitigate "uncertainty about counterparties' balance sheets." That is, they want the government to reduce the risk that Goldman's debtors or insurers will run into trouble.

Another pillar of Obama's financial reform is the "Volcker Rule," which would restrict the trading banks can do. Blankfein and Cohn, in their letter, indicate to shareholders that this rule will be no big deal for them.

The Volcker Rule would bar "proprietary trading" by Goldman ... but would not restrict dealings "related to" serving the bank's clients. But even Goldman's most notorious financial dealings ... were client-related, Goldman told shareholders.

In other words, almost any deal Goldman would make could be tied to a client, meaning the Volcker Rule couldn't touch Goldman, even if it cramps the style of smaller, less well-connected banks.

And cramping the style of smaller, less well-connected companies is always the goal of the Corporate Mafia, thus also the goal of the DC Mafia.

Dammit, dammit, dammit. I'm never paranoid enough to match reality. Even when it's Goldman Sachs, my favorite bugaboo, I still can't bring myself to see the true depths of evil!!!!

Seems to be a big push this morning, both on the floor of Congress and on all the cable "news" channels (left and right!) to persuade Obama to restore the manned space program.

I truly don't understand why the cable "news" channels have such a hardon for astronauts. Is it just a free source of allegedly interesting video without copyright restrictions?

I do understand why some Senators are pushing: Texas and other states in the South have large NASA installations, and losing manned flight will lead to shutdown of those facilities. Defending those Federal goodies is rational.

At this point in history there's simply no reason for manned flight. Apollo flights told us nothing significant about the moon, while all recent important discoveries about Mars and other planets have been made by satellite telescopes and robotic rovers.

And the justification of space as driver of technology is laughable. Yes, solid-state electronics was sort of inspired by the needs of space flight, but the Shuttle uses obsolete technology, not the latest and greatest.

When it comes to government activities driving modern technology, war is by far the most important, with the Census coming in a distant second. Space flight simply isn't on the list.

As Polistra has noted before, the Carbon Cult began in 1975 with a conference organized by long-time anthropological fraudster Margaret Mead, and attended by several of the current players including Obama's "science" adviser John Holdren. The conference was recorded in a govt-published book, which I took the trouble to buy and read. Much of it is rather dull speculation, but the preface by arch-criminal Margaret Mead lays out the roadmap for the crime.

We are facing a period when society must make decisions on a planetary scale. ... Whereas in the recent past a whole continent could have been submerged, decimated by plague, or ravaged by earthquakes and the rest of the world remain untouched and unnoticing, today's natural catastrophes and environmental interventions affect the whole of human society, interconnected as it is in reality though not yet politically capable of acting in concert.

And your goal was to conduct the concert.

As such, manmade interventions depend upon the application of science to technology; scientists become doubly responsible, both for the immediate uses made of their discoveies and for the well-being of their fellow citizens. Whether they be citizens of a free enterprise state, a socialist state, a dictatorship or a hereditary monarchy, they need inforation to make decisions, either for an intelligent choice among alternatives or for guidance in carrying out decrees by their ruling group. Even in the most arbitrary and authoritarian forms of government, a comprehension on the part of the leadership and an understanding on the part of the people are both essential. Unless the peoples of the world can begin to understand the immense and long-term consequences of what appear to be small immediate choices - to drill a well, open a road, build a large airplane, make a nuclear test, install a liquid fast breeder reactor, release chemicals which diffuse through the atmosphere, or discharge waste in concentrated amounts into the sea - the whole planet may become endangered.

Well, you've closed off nearly all those choices by now, haven't you?

What we need from scientists are estimates, presented with sufficient conservatism and plausibility but at the same time as free as possible from internal disagreements that can be exploited by political interests, that will allow us to start building a system of artificial but effective warnings, warnings which will parallel the instincts of animals who flee before the hurricane, pile up a larger store of nuts or grow thicker coats before a severe winter.

Must admit I like the animal analogy. Shows a respect for natural knowledge that has been lost lately, as scientists have come to rely purely on manufactured data plugged into imaginary computer models.

Scientists themselves may value making a fine point against a rival more than the possible consequences of the intra-scientific battle; or be extremely cautious so as to protect their reputations (among scientists) which is a modern equivalent of fiddling while Rome burns. Or they may simply despair of ever connecting effectively the nature of science, with its built-in requirement for validation by other scientists, into the political bureaucracies of the world.

Margie girl, you'd never have made it without a totally corrupt and incestuous "validation". Modern scientists depend equally on the corrupt "validation" of peer review. Hasn't changed.

Scientists' instincts will be to plunge into developing the technology. That would be a mistake. If experiments begin without consultation and debate, protesters will argue that the technology is being foisted upon us.

To be a workable plan B, geoengineering will first have to gain public acceptance. That will be a tough sell. Faced with new technologies, people invariably ask: is it safe? Who will govern it? Who will benefit? With a technology powerful enough to alter the climate, those questions are likely to be asked more loudly than ever. It is easy to envisage debates about the necessity of such a scheme, worries about its consequences or rumours that it is a front for scientists or businesses to cash in on the global warming "hoax".

How can the public be wooed? Consultation is obviously part of the answer. If people feel they have had their say and have been listened to, they are more likely to accept and trust geoengineering. There are signs that scientific organisations are aware of this. ...

It's a good start, but a much broader process of consultation will be needed if people worldwide, particularly environmental groups and those representing citizens in the developing world, are to have their say. This consultation needs to be high-profile so that geoengineering, a concept that few people have currently heard of, becomes part of mainstream debate. And it must start soon.

Same crap by the same people. Same need for "settled science", same desire to shut down opposing opinions, same urgency. Must! Start! Soon!

The good news: 35 years of hard criminal work, and they still haven't persuaded us. In fact the more we learn about their nefarious endeavors, the more we oppose.

The bad news: They don't need our knowledge or opinion. They don't need to persuade mere humans, because they don't need or want ANY HUMANS AT ALL ON THE ENTIRE PLANET. The opinion of dead humans doesn't matter. They'll still win in the end. They have the Wall Street Mafia, all the governments of the world, and all the media and educational and cultural and religious institutions on their side. (As Monckton puts it concisely, "money, power and glory.")

But at least we will die knowing that they have destroyed science, education, industry, civilization, and humanity through total fraud and crime. We will die knowing that the greatest crime in history, the final crime, the final Final Solution, was not a secret.

IT research firm Gartner estimates Google's data centres contain nearly a million servers, each drawing about 1 kilowatt of electricity. So every hour Google's engine burns through 1 million kilowatt-hours. Google serves up approximately 10 million search results per hour, so one search has the same energy cost as turning on a 100-watt light bulb for an hour.

Think about that ... ONE search is the same as turning on a light for an hour.

You're not paying for it directly, but for a serious Greenie, that shouldn't matter. Energy is being used!!!!! And part of that energy comes from evil carbon-emitting Coal!!!!!

If you're a real Gaia worshipper, you MUST stop using the Web. NOW!

Consummation devoutly to be wished. Ain't gonna happen, of course. Google is a veritable cathedral for Commies, shaping every search to favor Transnational Progressives and disfavor nationalists and Christians. Google is the nerve center of the Left.

The mother of criminally insane killer Phillip Paul says her son has asked for and been granted a transfer to Western State Hospital.

Back in September, Paul led authorities on a three-day manhunt after he escaped from a field trip to the Spokane County Fair. Now Paul’s mother says this is what her son wanted.

Arlene Paul said her son simply thought this would be better. It’s a complete reversal from what Phillip Paul and his attorney told a Yakima County judge in January. At that hearing, an attorney for DSHS made a last minute request to move Paul to Western State Hospital. Paul’s attorney opposed this, saying that was a politically motivated move that would only hurt his client. But last Wednesday, Paul made his own call.

Paul’s mother Arlene told KREM 2 News that her son left Eastern State Hospital because he thought Western State Hospital would be better. He believes there is more money, activities and resources, as well as better care. She says he can go outside anytime at Western State Hospital and he’s closer to family.

This comes on the heels of two laws recently passed in the Washington legislature, limiting travel for criminally insane patients and requiring hospital staff to tell law enforcement if they escape. Because of patient privacy laws, DSHS could not elaborate on Paul’s move, or even confirm that it took place.

Wowie zowie, I wish I had the privilege of deciding where to live for free, and knowing that the state had to obey my decision. That would be a fine reward for a life well-lived. What's that? You say it's a reward for killing an old lady? Oh. Yes, I understand. Gramsci. Redistribution of good and evil.

Now focus on the final paragraph.

(a) "This comes on the heels of two laws recently passed in the Washington legislature, LIMITING TRAVEL FOR CRIMINALLY INSANE PATIENTS AND REQUIRING HOSPITAL STAFF TO TELL LAW ENFORCEMENT IF THEY ESCAPE."

(b) "Because of patient privacy laws, DSHS could not elaborate on Paul’s move, or even confirm that it took place."

In other words, the new laws don't mean shit because the ACLU controls everything.

"Privacy advocates" and "privacy laws" are the enemy's best tool. Nothing works better than "privacy" to keep criminals in full control of society, and to keep normal people confused, fearful, and dead.

They began sending cars to America in the '50s without much success. Partly because the "Toyopet Paster Ribbon" was a fairly big car when Americans who bought foreign were looking for small; partly because the "Toyopet Paster Ribbon" was called the "Toyopet Paster Ribbon".

After several generations of improvement and half-hearted importation, they tried again in the early '70s with the Corona. That's when Consumer Reports stepped in, noticing that the repair and reliability records of Toyotas were stunningly better than any other car in any price range.

The difference was indeed stunning. At the time I was an active shade-tree mechanic, fixing imported cars for friends and relatives. When a friend asked me to tune up her Toyota, I was astonished by its superiority and integrity. Driving qualities (steering, handling, shifting, ergonomics) were beyond anything I'd ever experienced, and the internal parts were beautiful and pleasant to work with. At every point where machine interacted with human, whether driver or mechanic, Toyota's engineers had taken infinite care to make the experience solid and satisfying. So round, so firm, so fully packed, so easy on the draw.

Thus Toyota's current mess is truly distressing, especially because the main failure occurs at that critical human-machine contact point. I have to conclude they've grown fat and complacent like GM, though probably not quite that bad........

Nah, that's not the intention. The intention is to hold a big fancy party and uninvite NoKo and Persia, so they'll feel really, really jealous and really, really sorry.

This won't change the behavior of NoKo and Persia, because their behavior is basically rational and doesn't need to be changed. The fancy party will simply allow the Western leaders to feel all self-righteous and self-satisfied.

Satire aside, I simply don't buy the premise about terrorists getting hold of nukes. Nuke material was loosest in the early '90s when the Soviet Union had collapsed and its replacement wasn't solid yet. That was also the same time when Sheikh Osama was building his network and getting ready for big strikes. Since Osama hasn't used nuke material, we can assume that he wasn't able to buy the stuff while the "store was open." If he had it, he certainly would have used it as part of 9/11.

Doesn't matter anyway, because Sultan Bush has already demonstrated that we aren't going to fight, already surrendered once and for all. No point in talking about deterrence now. All gone.

At this point we should be worrying far more about infiltration of Mohammedan agents into our government and military. But we obviously aren't worrying about that either as witness Nidal Hasan, so there's no point in treating any of this shit seriously.

Hungary held elections yesterday, and the sort-of-Populist party Fidesz won an absolute majority! A hard-line nationalist group picked up 18% of the seats, leaving the formerly ruling Socialists in the dust.

Hungary has always been an intelligent, innovative and productive country. Under Soviet rule, Hungary was allowed to slide gradually away from orthodoxy because the Bloc depended on its industries. And then in 1989 Hungary started the cascade of leaks to the West that finally undermined the Berlin Wall.

The new government has to clean up an economic mess, largely created by the current ruling coalition which buys into the Gramscian nonsense of "free trade" and "international banking". (The current PM is an economist, thus a slave to Wall Street's commands.)

Hungary has one big advantage: its currency hasn't yet been absorbed into the EU monstrosity, so it's still free to make its own economic decisions.

The new leader seems to understand sovereignty:

[New Prime Minister] Viktor Orban has told farmers that foreigners will never be able to own agricultural land as long as his government is in power.

Analysts say that if implemented, that pledge could strain relations with the European Union. Free movement of capital is one of the Union's key principles.

Later thought: There is a wild card that hasn't been noticed by American media. Conoco and other oil companies have recently found a huge deposit of natural gas in Poland's Baltic waters. Enough to make Poland completely self-sufficient in energy for decades ... thus no need to buy from Russia. Is that a reason for Russia to destabilize Poland? Maybe.

This video clip of an Idaho soldier held prisoner by the Taliban is hitting the news today.

At one point Bergdahl says "Let me to go. Get me to come home."

Those are phrases that NO native speaker of English could ever utter, even when tired and strained. Either Bergdahl is intentionally using strange phrases, or he's carefully emphasizing the non-native bits of the script they're ordering him to read.

(Judging from the captions on the video, it's a safe bet that his captors have only a marginal knowledge of English, so they wouldn't notice the difference.)

In either case, he's giving us a clear signal of duress. I hope the Army has linguists who can understand this signal, and I especially hope and pray those linguists are loyal, which doesn't seem to be a common quality in the Army of Nidal Hasan.

For some reason the brand-R talking point heads are focusing this week on the 'horrible' possibility that Obama might impose a value-added tax.

Neal Boortz carefully and lucidly illustrated how the VAT works; how it takes a little slice at each stage of production from raw material through factory. True, but this is exactly why we shouldn't worry about the effect of a VAT.

WE DON'T PRODUCE ANYTHING HERE, so there aren't any stages of production to tax.

Except for food and Toyotas, everything we buy is made in China.

Since food is typically exempt, a VAT would yield little net revenue in modern America. Thus it's unlikely to happen.

I'd be opposed to VAT for a more 'subjunctive' reason: if we had it in place, manufacturers would have yet one more excuse to stay in China. And moving production back here is the only way to fix this unfortunate land.

Come to think of it, this should be the best reason for Republicans to support the VAT, since they want all production to stay in China.

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For the record, I strongly support replacing the income tax with a plain national sales tax, charged at retail endpoint along with state sales taxes. This would make life harder for businesses that function purely by selling, and easier for both individual and corporate producers. It would also encourage saving and discourage borrowing.

Another angle from a CBS commentator: "The poisonous partisan atmosphere has affected Stupak's relationship with his constituents."

No, you idiot. Stupak's betrayal of his constituents has affected his relationship with his constituents. This is how a parliamentary system is supposed to work, you idiot. Voters will forgive an apparent betrayal if the representative can show them why it was necessary. In this case it wasn't necessary, so no amount of explaining would help.

Fed officials raided a Ponzi scheme based in Spokane today. The scheme, called "Team Spirit America", had been running for 10 years, offering 30 to 60 percent returns to investors. Supposedly the returns were coming from a payday-loan business.

Total loss may be in the $50 million range, which is nowhere near Bernie but still impressive. Oddly enough this scheme also had a religious connection: most of the suckers were Jehovah's Witnesses.

Another much smaller Ponzi was broken last week in Coeur d'Alene; this one was called "Dale's Investment Club". Anyone dumb enough to put their life savings into "Dale's Investment Club" deserves to lose.

If you're on the same side as Sheikh Osama, you should be happy today. 25 miners were killed by the Sheikh's best friend, our own homegrown terrorist organization EPA.

Strip mining and mountaintop mining are relatively safe. Underground mining is incurably deadly. The government-funded terrorists at EPA, with unfailing accuracy, always prohibit activities that save lives. And their new push for wind and solar means even more coal power will be needed, all of which has to be mined underground! Oh boy! More blood and guts! My favorite!

News item: Wash State has passed a new law that accomplishes the same practical purpose as the "Scottish" verdict of Guilty And Insane. This law places the choice of prison vs asylum in the hands of DSHS instead of the judge and jury. I would have preferred the clear and straightforward verdict, but this regulatory approach may work better in the long run.

Two inmates in Eastern Insane Asylum are now suing to have the law revoked.

Why? Because the law could move them from the asylum to prison, which they claim is a violation of their "Disability Rights", whatever the hell those are. And some Commie outfit called "Disability Rights Law Center" is running the suit, undoubtedly with taxpayer funding.

Most likely won't succeed, but you never know. The State supremes are fairly rational and won't go along. If the "Disability Rights Law Center" has enough taxpayer funding to keep pushing, they'll take it to the 9th Circuit, where Chief Saboteur Reinhardt, America's worst enemy, will use the suit to free all the crazies in the country. Guaranteed.

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The only comment on the news article so far was a perfect and terse expression of logic:

"Okay, If they can understand the law why are they not in prison to begin with?"

Michael Steele, head of the Republican Party, says that "black politicians have a smaller margin of error."

Absolute nonsense and immature weepiness.

Both parties give black politicians vastly more room for error and stupidity than they give white politicians. And Steele knows this full well. The same man with the same incompetence but different pigmentation would have been "spending more time with his family" a long time ago. Steele only stays because of the wildly idiotic Rove fantasy about gaining black votes for Republicans, which will never ever ever ever happen in a billion years no matter how many black officials they appoint.

Commenters at WUWT, mostly self-selected skeptics on the elite theory of Global Warming, showed an interesting failure of skepticism on the elite theory of Evolution.

The article in question was an observation of toads moving to new locations a few days before a serious quake. Some of the commenters showed an appropriate scientific attitude, but most were blinded by the conventional theory of evolution.

Example of the latter:

so, where would the toads go? I mean, they can’t go far enough to get away from the quake, so what’s the point? not saying that there’s not a biological change in behavior, but I can’t see that “fleeing” is an evolved response to quakes.

thus the behavior, while interesting, may not have much usefulness to earthquake prediction. If other events, which ARE an evolved response, also result in an earthquake prediction response, all the other events will yield false alarms for earthquakes, thus limiting usefulness for earthquake prediction.

on the other hand, maybe they didn’t “flee” but rather went far underground where it’s, presumably, safer from falling debris, etc. THAT could be an evolved response with some utility.

of course, this requires that quakes occurred frequently enough that the “hide” mutation would be selected because the “not hide” toads would be killed, which sounds unlikely because quakes are uncommon events for any particular locale.

In other words, earthquake sensing can't be possible because it couldn't have evolved by random natural selection of mutations.

Nevertheless, earthquake sensing is a FACT, even if not a well-explored or explained fact. There are plenty of reliable observations in animals and humans.

When fact and theory conflict, you have to change the theory. You can't let your religious faith in the theory blind you to the facts, or prevent you from thinking about the facts. This is equally true of global warming and evolution.

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Sidenote: Going underground is emphatically the wrong way to prepare for a quake, and it isn't what animals do. "Falling debris" comes from manmade buildings, so there shouldn't be a natural reason to avoid it. Caves and tunnels do collapse in quakes, so there should be a natural reason to avoid them.

In general, it appears that animals just "go elsewhere." Perhaps the magnetic sensors in their brains are disturbed by the low-freq radio waves that precede the quake, and perhaps they travel until the discomfort from the waves falls below a threshold level. (This theory could be tested experimentally using manmade VLF waves of the same freq and intensity as the natural pre-quake waves.)

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Sidenote 2: Reminds me of something that happened in 1970. Several of us hippie types had taken up spelunking for unremembered reasons. (I guess one way to risk your "invulnerable" body and use up testosterone is as good as another.) We were exploring a set of caves in the Glass Mountains of Oklahoma. As we were preparing for the next cave, Larry had a terrible dream about getting stuck, and strongly advised us to stop. Amazingly we took his advice. Sure enough, on the day we had planned for the next expedition, a very rare earthquake shook that part of Oklahoma.

(1) The default mammalian dream. Bits and pieces of current experience or worries, transposed to a different time and place, spliced together at random. The mental equivalent of a daily dump.

(2) Story dreams, with real plot and deep original characters. These were extremely rare until 10 years ago, now fairly common. (I wish I could capture this level of imagination in waking hours!)

Last night's dream was in story form, but it was entirely outside my standard genres, which always have a sci-fi or spy flavor. In this story, I was a magazine reporter doing a feature on a modern farmer; accompanying him as he checked his cattle and wheat, listening as he talked via cell phone to his wife and kids ... and his mistress. At this point I had a moral conundrum: do I spike the whole story, tell it complete with the mistress, or try to persuade him that his life would be just as good (and a lot simpler) without the mistress?

This was not my dream! It's all normal and modern and TV-like. Journalism, farming, cell phones, moral conundrums?? I don't know anything about any of these subjects!

This dream was obviously addressed to the mind of Rod Dreher, and was mistakenly shipped to my head.

In the little tempest over comments by the Pope's advisor Cantalemesse (doesn't the name mean "he sings the Mass"?) both sides are, as usual, missing the basic logic.

Big Chief Sings-The-Mass said that the Stalinists who use the scandal of perverted priests to destroy the whole Church are overgeneralizing in the same way that people have used the annoying qualities of many Jews to destroy all Jews.

Not strictly false; both situations do involve overgeneralizations.

The problem is that the Roman situation involves a hierarchy with direct control, while the Jewish situation didn't.

The pervert priests were encouraged and coddled for many years by all levels of the hierarchy, which after all consisted of the same type of people, who got into the hierarchy for the same reasons.

Annoying Jews are just annoying. There are times (like right now) when Jews do in fact control significant parts of our economy and culture (like Wall Street and Hollywood) and do in fact use those parts to serve their own annoying ends. And you can even see a certain amount of enabling, as when the Jewish SEC protected the Jewish Bernie Madoff for many years, refusing to listen to the Greek Harry Markopolos.

But there isn't a Jewish Pope or a Jewish hierarchy; these particular Jews reached positions of power because they're smart and aggressive, not because they're Jewish.

The Wall Street Mafia was previously owned by Presbyterians, who used it in the same corrupt way because they were also smart and aggressive, not because they were Presbyterians.

In short, Catholic corruption is specifically owned by the institution of the Church, while Jewish corruption is owned by people who could be replaced by other types of people and still be corrupt in the same way.

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We can, however, draw a correct and valid generalization here. The Wall Street Mafia is corrupt as an institution, just as the Catholic priesthood is corrupt as an institution. Our economy won't be free to grow until we kill the corrupt economic institution, and the Catholic form of belief won't be free to grow until it kills the corrupt religious institution.

Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace who quit when the organization turned to pure Communism, has been effectively demolishing the Carbon Cult for quite a while. Here's a speech he gave a few days ago at the Washington Policy Center.

Especially good speech on the basics of climate. Not much about the recent exposé ("ClimateGate") because that doesn't really alter the basic fact that the Carbon Cult has been a criminal conspiracy since it started in 1975. Instead, Moore trains the audience to understand exactly why the Cult has always been a crime, trains them to examine each Alarmist fraud against the factual history of life on earth.

He does a deliciously wicked takedown of an article in 'Discover' claiming that excess CO2 is "choking" plants. Moore asks: how do professional plant-growers increase their yield? Answer: by pumping extra CO2 into their greenhouses, usually 4 times the ambient concentration. He then shows that the ambient concentration for almost all of history, during which plants and animals developed and flourished, was 4 times the current level. In fact plants are starving from inadequate nutrition in current conditions, not drowning in excess "poison".

This is the best way to argue. Too many of the current anti-Cult spokesmen are spending too much time on fiddly details like validity of statistical methods or misprinted numbers. Unnecessary and counterproductive when we have all of Earth's history, all available facts, and all valid logic on our side.

Arguing one form of stats against another form of stats is like the old joke about the engineer and the guillotine. The Crimatologists are experts in stats because the only way they can make their false theory appear to work is by fudging stats. When you show them how their stats are wrong, you're only helping them to fudge better, helping them to add more epicycles. Moore's approach is far more direct and Galilean: He shows from simple natural facts why the entire theory is backwards.

The only time we're allowed to hear the truth about abortion is when Scott Roeder states it in the middle of a court proceeding that was already being shown on TV. He's not much of a speaker, but his statement included all the relevant facts about partial-birth abortion.

Even then, we didn't get to hear all of it; Propaganda Factory #1 belatedly realized what was happening and interrupted before the end, cutting to some "expert" who told us that Roeder would get the maximum time because he "didn't show remorse."

That's right, idiot "expert". Roeder didn't show remorse because Roeder has a moral code. You don't have a moral code. Instead, you have the Pavlovian responses of a totalitarian. Any act currently defined by the regime as illegal requires remorse; any act currently defined by the regime as permissible requires celebration. The regime decrees it, you believe it, that settles it.

Destroying a mass killer is a serious act and an illegal act, but it is not an act that requires remorse. We didn't require remorse from the man who killed Jeffrey Dahmer. Then why should we require remorse from the man who killed George Tiller? The only difference is that Tiller's long career of killing innocent people was celebrated by the regime, while Dahmer's long career of killing innocent people was condemned by the regime.

This is not a moral difference, it's just a difference in licensing. Tiller's mass murder of innocents was wonderful because he was licensed by the regime to perform mass murder of innocents, while Dahmer's mass murder of innocents was horrible because he wasn't licensed by the regime to perform mass murder of innocents.

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Language note: I wrote the above in painfully precise and verbose style because I don't want it to be misunderstood by assholes, and also because I'm seriously pissed on this point. When I'm mildly angry I'll cuss and growl, but when I'm seriously pissed I tend to speak with great formality and precision.

The folks at WUWT are having fun this morning with a truly dumb article about Arctic resources. The author takes all the ratshit of Global Warming as "Settled Science" and then builds a fearful fantasy about the Oil Wars that will settledly occur when the Arctic becomes totally ice-free, which is settledly guaranteed to happen next week or so.

The title of the article says it all. "After the Ice Melts: Conflict Resolution and the International Scramble for Natural Resources in the Arctic Circle."

One exchange in the comments led me to an unexpected and unrelated realization.

Q: How does Denmark have a claim to drilling rights? Denmark is far from the Arctic.

A: By way of proxy as in Greenland.

I already knew that ... and if I'd given the answer, I would have phrased it better ... but my attention was caught by the mere existence of the question.

Sixty years ago a similar set of knowledgeable commenters wouldn't have missed Denmark's ownership of Greenland, because the pattern of small rich countries owning huge swathes of the world was commonplace. Every map showed massive blobs of dark green for French colonies and pink for British. Most of the world's geographical divisions had parentheses after their names as in ALGERIA (Fr) or GAMBIA (Br).

Between 1776 and 1960 nearly all of those colonies turned nominally independent; partly by war, mostly because the small rich countries got tired of managing all those revolting natives to gain a dwindling return of minerals and crops.

When I think of Denmark, I picture a country that combines the best parts of socialism and capitalism to provide an optimal life for its citizens, and I picture a country that resists Mohammed better than most Euros but not strongly enough to make a difference. I never picture a great colonial power.

And yet that's exactly what Denmark is. The last of the small rich countries controlling huge swathes of territory.

Scandinavians settled Greenland in 800 AD, when the world's climate was much better (i.e. warmer) than today; Denmark officially took possession in 1380, after the world had started cooling toward today's unsatisfactory chill, and after Greenland was mainly depopulated. How did they hold it for 630 years? (DAMN, that's a long time!!!) Most likely because it was depopulated. Eskimos are sparse and self-sufficient, living in a way that nobody else wants to live and eating stuff that nobody else wants to eat. (Thus presaging what will happen to the rest of us as the world cools sharply.) In short, Greenland has nothing worth taking, and its peasants may be revolting, but they aren't revolting.

About Me

Polistra was named after the original townsite of Manhattan (the one in Kansas). When I was growing up in Manhattan, I spent a lot of time exploring by foot, bike, and car. I discovered the ruins of an old mill along Wildcat Creek, and decided (inaccurately) that it was the remains of the original site of Polistra. Accurate or not, I've always liked the name, with its echoes of Poland (an under-appreciated friend of freedom) and stars. ==== The title icon is explained here. ==== Switchover: This 2007 entry marks a sharp change in worldview from neocon to pure populist. ===== The long illustrated story of Polistra's Dream is a time-travel fable, attempting to answer the dangerous revision of New Deal history propagated by Amity Shlaes. The Dream has 8 episodes, linked in a chain from the first. This entry explains the Shlaes connection.